One Nation Under Trump

I am not being hyperbolic. I was not terrified of a President McCain or a President Romney, though I thought both were terrible choices at the time, of course. President Palin? Yes, I was scared at the thought of her kicking McCain down the stairs and claiming his presidency, but that now seems tame in comparison to the idea of President Trump. I thought Sarah Palin was the nadir of what the GOP had to offer America. Oh, how naive I was back then. I’m not saying she’s any more acceptable as president now than she was then, but Trump has lowered the bar to the point where I’m almost longing for W. Almost.

Trump is not qualified to be president. He hasn’t been an elected official of any sort, and while I know it’s in vogue to scoff at career politicians, I want my president to have SOME prior political experience. Would I go to a surgeon who had never done an operation before? Fuck no! Then why the hell would I want a president who doesn’t know how many articles the Constitution has? I didn’t know, either, but I’m not running for fucking president. I want my president to know what the job actually entails. I don’t want my president to be sitting on Twitter, responding to every comment tweeted his way. He calls Clinton ‘Crooked Hillary’ and Elizabeth Warren ‘Goofy Elizabeth Warren’ as if he’s an eight-year old boy. He admires Vladimir Putin and says, “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him.” This clearly shows how narcissistic Trump is and how easy it would be to manipulate him. For all his flaws, Putin is not a stupid man. I have no doubt that he would be able to make Trump do whatever he (Putin) wanted him simply by buttering up his ego.

In addition, Trump has defended Roger Ailes vigorously against allegations that Ailes systematically sexually harassed/molested his employees for the past half-century. Trump said, “…and I can tell you that some of the women that are complaining, I know how much he’s helped them.” If that wasn’t bad enough, he added, “I’ve always found him to be just a very, very good person. And by the way, a very, very talented person….So I feel very badly.” Because Trump thinks Ailes is a good person, Ailes can’t have done what he’s been accused of. And, even if he did, he helped those women, damn it! Again, Trump’s narcissism shines through. If he likes someone, then that person is A-OK. In addition, Trump can’t speak a coherent sentence to save his life. Like I said, I thought Palin was bad, including her word salad. But she’s fucking Shakespeare in comparison to Trump-speak. In that link I just posted, Judd Legum outlines all the sexist and frankly terrible things Trump has said about women. In addition, he’s said that if Ivanka was being harassed on the job, he’d hope she would switch jobs. His son, Eric, said something even more offensive. He said Ivanka was a strong woman who wouldn’t let herself be harassed on the job. Because, yes, it’s that the women are weak that they’re harassed. Ivanka said something sensible, but that seems to be her role in this whole fiasco.

More importantly, Trump is being accused of rape by someone who was thirteen years old at the time she claimed she was a sex slave to Trump and an associate of his. He’s also had two prior accusations of sexual harassment/assault, including a rape charge by his ex-wife, Ivana, who said she felt “violated” by the interaction. I don’t know why this isn’t getting more attention by the media, but it probably has something to do with the fact that no emails are involved. In addition to the rape trial–excuse me. I can’t just drop that there like it’s nothing. The Republican presidential candidate is being accused of raping a thirteen year old girl. This isn’t normal, folks. It shouldn’t be treated as a trivial matter–which it really fucking is. I’m gobsmacked that this has been glossed over, but it’s indicative of how seriously (not very) we take rape in this culture. Speaking of rape, Trump tweeted about sexual assault in the military, and it was about as horrible as you’d expect. He said:

26,000 unreported sexual assults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?

He was asked about it today and defended it, by the way. So It’s not as if he’s evolved on the subject. There are so many reasons that’s a shitty thing to say, starting with the assumption that men can’t help but rape women if they’re forced to work together in close quarters. In addition, it completely ignores the fact that men can and are raped. In fact, at least 14,000 male soldiers are sexually assaulted/raped every year. I could write a whole post on this topic, but I’ll move on for now.

Speaking of lawsuits, Trump has been involved in many. How many? Thousands. 3,500 over the past thirty years. Some filed by him and his people, some filed against him. He’s been known to threaten to sue just to get someone to back off from attacking him. One time it backfired on him was when he sued a reporter who wrote a book saying Trump exaggerated how much money he had. During the lawsuit, Trump had to answer several uncomfortable questions about his finances, which I really wish he had to do now. And, can we talk about how his companies have declared bankruptcy several times and how he doesn’t like to pay people who work for him? He likes to brag about being a good business man and how much money he’s made, but as I’ve often said, with all the advantages he’s been born with–not to mention all the money his father has given him–he should be Warren Buffett rich by now.

I’m not even close to being done with all the things that horrify me about the idea of Trump becoming president. When he announced he was running for president, way back in the Stone Ages*, everyone thought it was a joke. Oh, hahahahahhahahah, look at the clown running for president. The media gave him so much free press and treated him like a precocious child in their coverage. I firmly believe he wouldn’t be the Republican presidential candidate if he had had to deal with even a tenth of the media scrutiny that the rest of the candidates faced. I’m also outraged that the bar has been so lowered for Trump that by the time November 8th rolls around, Trump will be praised if he manages to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Even now, if he spits out three consecutive coherent sentences, he’s called presidential. Meanwhile, Clinton is scolded for being shrill, irritated, and for not smiling. And what about those emails she–goddamn it! I’m so fucking tired of hearing about the emails.

The idea of Trump being president makes me want to cry. And, yet, there’s something that’s even more horrifying to me than the idea of President Trump–it’s the fact that his hatred has become normalized (thanks again, media!) and his supporters have become emboldened to let their racist, sexist, queerphobic, xenophobic freak flags fly. If you look at any of his events, you see these angry white people, mostly men, screaming thing like, “Hang that bitch” while their eyes are bulging out of the sockets and the veins are throbbing in their necks. Trump was recently in my state, and I half-jokingly tweeted that if he had a public event like a rally, I might attend. I got more than one person asking me not to go. They were worried about my safety. I joked about wearing a blond wig and calling myself Sandra Dee, but after thinking about it and watching a few minutes of this video, I decided it wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t think I’d be safe. Yes, I live in Minnesota, and, yes, our Republicans chose Rubio as their candidate,** but looking at the hate on display in that video convinced me that I didn’t want to chance it. His supporters call themselves alt-right, but they are literal white nationalists and fascists.

Much ink has been spilled about the demographics of Trump’s supporters. The prevailing mythos is that they’re working class white people, resentful of being trodden upon. However, that belief has been pretty much ripped apart as it’s been shown that Trump supporters, like most Republicans, have more money in general than their counterparts. That doesn’t mean they’re not anxious about money, but it does put rest to the belief that it’s economics that drive people to support Trump. In addition, when asked questions about their reasons for backing Trumps, the top reason in this reported survey was that they agreed a “growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens US values”. Other opinions that also ranked high were that it’s “bad for country that blacks, Latinos, Asians will be majority of the population”, and “Islam more likely than other religions to encourage violence”. The third reason is being a Republican. Economics didn’t make the top three. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic has a convincing argument that economic anxieties and racial resentment are inexplicably entwined, and that it’s folly to try to separate the two.

Anyone who is not in the majority knows the reason people support Trump–fear of the other. While I can understand the fear to a certain extent, I’m tired of being asked to be empathetic to them when they’re the ones who want to burn down the country with people like me in it. They hate me, and I’m supposed to be sympathetic to them? No. Not this time. I cannot be gracious with so much on the line. I went on a Twitter rant the other day. I’m reproducing the whole thing here.

Trump needs to be demolished. Crushed thoroughly under our collective heels. His supporters need to know they have no place in our America.

So, yes, I’m afraid of a President Trump. I’m afraid of all he’s unleashed already and that it won’t crawl back under the rocks if he loses. I’m terrified of what my country will be like for people like me if this man is elected president. I actually start hyperventilating at the thought, which is one reason I’ve limited my political consumption. You know what else I am, though? Fucking furious. This is my country, too, Trump supporters, like it or not, and I’m not going down without a fight. I know I’m on the right side of history. What about you?

*Presidential elections need to last six weeks, two months tops. I’m so fucking sick of this.

**It’s a sad state of affair that Rubio seems like a sane choice in comparison to Trump.